Pope canonizes four, says being a saint is not for the weak or fearful

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

Vatican City—Presiding over the second canonization ceremony of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI honored two women and two men who demonstrated that becoming a saint is not for the weak and fearful.

“The saint is that man, that woman who, responding with joy and generosity to the call of Christ, leaves everything to follow him,” the pope said at the Oct. 15 canonization Mass in St. Peter’s Square.

Political persecution, poverty, suspicion and even opposition from church leaders were not uncommon in the lives of the four new saints: Mexican Bishop Rafael Guizar Valencia of Vera Cruz; Italian Father Filippo Smaldone; Italian Sister Rosa Venerini; and Mother Theodore Guerin, foundress of the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind.

Even in the midst of “trials and persecutions,” the pope said, the new saints knew that following Jesus “truly guaranteed a happy existence and eternal life.”

“The saints had the humility and courage to respond ‘yes’ to Jesus Christ and renounced everything to be his friends,” he said.

Cardinal George of Chicago, who had cancer surgery in July, and Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi of Palermo, Italy, were the main concelebrants at the papal Mass.

Five other U.S. bishops from Indiana and Illinois concelebrated the Mass, which was attended by some 125 Sisters of Providence, dozens of students from St. Mary-of-the-Woods College and 45 pilgrims from the newly renamed St. Theodore Guerin High School in Noblesville, Ind.

Philip McCord, the facilities manager at the college, joined two Sisters of Providence in bringing offertory gifts to the pope during the Mass. The healing of McCord’s right eye after prayers to the community’s foundress was accepted as the miracle needed for her canonization.

In his homily, the pope said, "With great trust in divine providence, Mother Theodore overcame many challenges and persevered in the work that the Lord had called her to do. By the time of her death in 1856, the sisters were running schools and orphanages throughout the state of Indiana."

Speaking in French, St. Mother Theodore’s native tongue, the pope said that in the Eucharist, in prayer and in her “infinite trust in divine providence,” she found the “strength and audacity” to carry out her mission.

The pilgrims who came to St. Peter’s Square for the canonization Mass included dozens of young people from the United States.

Meggie Gallina, 16, entered the ninth grade in 2004 at Blessed Theodore Guerin High School in Noblesville.

Standing outside a Rome church Oct. 14 holding one side of a huge banner with the school's new name -- St. Theodore Guerin High School—Gallina said her trip to Rome was “surreal.”

“It is rare enough to get to go to a canonization, but to go to the canonization of your school’s patron is amazing,” she said.

From the school's first semester, she said, students learned about St. Mother Theodore, her call to leave France and trip to Indiana in 1840.

“She was an amazing woman,” Gallina said. “She relied so much on God, on providence. She came to a country, not speaking the language, and built schools, opened pharmacies, built hospitals--all of this was the work of one woman.”

The students of the college St. Mother Theodore founded in Indiana felt the same pride.

Frannie Schalasky, a senior at “the Woods,” said the students learn about the new saint from their first week at the college. She said they see her influence in “the Sisters of Providence and their ministries today” and in what they see as a great gift: education at an all-women's college.

During his homily, Pope Benedict praised St. Rafael for his dedication to the poor and his commitment to preaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments despite being forced to flee the Mexican government's persecution of Catholics in the 1920s and 1930s.

Dozens of members of the Legionaries of Christ attended the canonization Mass to honor St. Rafael, the great-uncle of the Legionaries’ founder, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado. The 86-year-old priest did not attend the Mass; earlier this year, after an investigation into charges of sexual misconduct, the Vatican told Father Maciel that he could no longer exercise his priestly ministry publicly.

Members of the Knights of Columbus also participated in the Mass in recognition of St. Rafael’s membership in the Catholic fraternal organization.

St. Peter’s Square also was filled with Italian pilgrims celebrating the canonization of St. Filippo, who lived from 1848 to 1923, and dedicated himself to ministry to the hearing-impaired, founding the Salesian Sisters of the Sacred Heart to assist them; and St. Rosa, the 17th-century foundress of an order, now known as the Venerini Sisters, to educate young women.